


Patience and Faith

by JOBrien42



Series: West Wing Marvels [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Mike Casper is Phil Coulson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-24 06:13:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17095346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JOBrien42/pseuds/JOBrien42
Summary: President Santos attends a performance of "In The Heights" with his family, Josh and Donna during the events of "The Incredible Hulk".





	1. Chapter 1

Donna Moss-Lyman looked over at her husband of six months and rolled her eyes. They were in a box at the Richard Rodgers Theatre with the President of the United States, his wife and their children at one of the hottest shows on Broadway, and the man’s eyes were focused on the messages scrolling by on his (thankfully muted) Blackberry.

She knew things weren’t going well. The midterms were less than five months away. In a good year the President’s party lost a few seats, and this hadn’t been a good year. Any goodwill from the resolution of the China-Russia conflict in Kazakhstan last Fall was lost when President Santos had sent troops into Afghanistan in response to a series of terrorist attacks. In February the CEO of the military's largest, most important supplier, Tony Stark, had been captured while visiting the region, sending the stock market into free fall. After the man had escaped three months later, he declared in a live press conference that Stark Industries would stop developing weapons, further depleting the retirement portfolios of the American public and driving the Joint Chiefs into a tizzy. 

To top it off, three days ago there had been an incident at Culver College in Virginia, where some _thing_ , described by witnesses as some sort of twelve foot tall hulking monstrosity, had attacked soldiers under the command of General Ross, inflicting multiple casualties as well as destroying a helicopter and several assault vehicles. 

Josh had objected to their coming here without a noticeable political upside, and Donna had to listen to him whine the entire ride up on Marine One. But President Santos had really wanted to see the show, and so they were here, and Josh was rebelling by reading his e-mails in the dim light, the glow of his screen reflecting and highlighting his furrowed brow.

“Mommy, he has the same name as me!” her daughter had exclaimed as Helen had showed her the cast in the Playbill. Donna had noted in her preliminary research that the male lead - a man named Lin-Manuel Miranda - was also responsible for the music and lyrics, and she’d guessed that the Santos’s youngest would like the connection.

“If you married him you would be Miranda Miranda,” Peter teased.

Donna looked down at the children and gave a warm, if wistful, smile. She and Josh had talked about kids, and she knew he was wholly in favor of the idea. But not while he was Chief of Staff - he refused to be an absentee father. He struggled enough with the guilt of being an absentee husband for so many nights. And while Donna was no Jenny McGarry, it was hard on those days she got home at 7 and he arrived at 2 in the morning, if at all. 

It could be worse, she told herself. Under President Bartlet, a twelve to fourteen hour day was the norm, and weekends off were generally something that happened to other people. Matthew Santos would burn the midnight oil when necessary - and yes, it was often necessary - but he made time for his family, and asked his staff to do the same when they could. And her lighter schedule meant she’d had time to pursue her degree without him hovering over her and trying to help with her homework. Or distract her with kisses (and more), as she sometimes did when he brought work home in violation of the Rules.

Music was starting, a salsa beat that switched quickly to several other songs as if someone was changing channels on a radio. She shot a disapproving glance at Josh, who gave her a quick, guilty look and turned his eyes to the stage.

“Lights up on Washington Heights…” rapped Mr. Miranda, starting the opening number.

Donna soon found herself transfixed by the rhythms and the wordplay of the show, and she could see why Toby had come to see the show twice. Even Josh seemed to watching, having at least temporarily returned his phone to its holster at his hip.

She caught Ron Butterfield entering the box out of the corner of her eye. He approached Josh and whispered in his ear, after which the two exited into the hall. Donna found herself holding her breath, waiting for them to return - it clearly wasn’t an immediate threat, or they’d have been moved to a secure location or evacuated, but Ron would never have intruded lightly.

When Josh came and sat back down, he gave her a slight frown, his posture rigid. ( _Something bad has come up._ ) She raised an eyebrow ( _Do you need to talk about it?_ ), and he shook his head, and touched his wrist. ( _Not right now, but later._ ) She nodded and locked her gaze to his, and gave a hint of a smile. ( _OK, I love you._ ) He smiled back. ( _I love you too._ ) 

The show continued, and Donna found herself caught up in these fictional lives playing out before her. In many ways it reminded her of that time she, Josh and Toby had been stuck in Indiana. She wondered how Cathy was doing with the farm, if it could have survived. Or if Matt Kelley’s daughter had graduated Notre Dame, if the tax credit they’d finally pushed through near the end of President Bartlet’s second term had helped. 

They were getting near the end of the first Act, and the stage had been set up as a nightclub, with several of the characters dancing, flirting, and eventually fighting. In the middle of the simulated combt, all the lights in the theater went out.

Josh leapt to his feet. 

Donna couldn’t see him, but she seemed to sense the anxiety radiating off him and was moving half a heartbeat behind. She had instinctively leapt to his side, placing her hand on his arm. 

“It’s part of the show,” she whispered in his ear, even as the actors started holding their cell phones aloft and confirming her assertion in song.

She was glad she’d familiarized herself with the Playbill and had noticed the song called “Blackout”, and had reached him before he started shouting for the Secret Service. Beneath his suit coat, his muscles were as tightly wound as steel cables. She moved a hand to his back and began to softly move in slow circles. He glanced over at her and gave her an apologetic smile, and she guided him back to his seat before reclaiming hers.

That crisis averted, she turned her attention to the stage. “We are powerless…” they sang. And her jaw set, because that was one of the things that brought her to leave Wisconsin all those years ago, the message of Josiah Bartlet, to bring hope and opportunity to those who were powerless. They had been granted great power by the electorate and the constitution, and they had the responsibility to ensure a better future for everyone. She smiled fiercely, knowing her husband and the man he had gotten elected to the Oval Office seemingly by force of will alone were on the job.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of hundreds of stories they will share.

After the song ended the fireworks faded away and the applause eventually petered out, the house lights came on, and Josh moved to speak with his boss.

“Mr. President.”

“Josh. Are you enjoying the show?”

“Yes sir,” he answered. “I wanted to let you know that Ron informed me of the checkpoints General Ross had put around the city. That it had something to do with the attack in Willowdale.”

President Santos looked over at him and nodded. 

Josh felt his temper flare and pushed it down. “You see, this is the sort of thing I need to know about if I’m going to do my job.”

“Josh, if I’d told you you would have shut down the trip, and I wanted Peter and Miranda to see this show. I wanted to see this show. It’s important to me that they see Latino faces - faces like mine and theirs - being celebrated, making beautiful art. I was briefed and I felt the risk was negligible.”

“Briefed by whom? Was it ‘SHIELD’ again?” Josh snapped. The idea that there was this secret international spy organization with Presidential access was still something he couldn’t wrap his head around, and that he was kept out of the loop was beyond irritating. “Sir, you know I serve at the pleasure…”

“C’mon, Josh, not this again. You aren’t resigning. I was briefed. You know I would never put my family - or yours - in danger.”

“No sir.”

“Then trust me. There are some code words that even you don’t have clearance for. This was one of them.” The President could see the frustration on his Chief of Staff’s face, “Like the song said, Josh, _Paciencia y fe_. Patience and faith. I’ll see what I can do, but in the meantime, I’m asking you to trust me.”

“Yes sir.”

Josh turned back to his Blackberry, to catch up on the messages from the last ninety minutes or so. Glancing over the screen, he saw Donna crouched down in front of Miranda and Peter, talking about the first act, with half the conversation in Spanish. 

She knew Spanish? His wife never ceased to amaze him. She’d been worried she hadn’t been qualified when she was offered to be Chief of Staff for the First Lady, but her fears had been unfounded. She ran that office even better than she’d ever run his, although he knew Helen Santos was almost certainly a much easier person to work for. And through it all, she had gone back to school and was nearing completion of an accelerated Bachelor/Masters program at Georgetown. Including, apparently, courses in Spanish.

God, he loved this amazing, brilliant, loving woman who’d chosen to spend her life with him.

His eyes tracked back to the screen. The Republicans were being intransigent on the Senate version of an Infrastructure Improvement bill that had already passed in the house. Some newswire reports of unrest in Sokovia. Preliminary plans for the President to make a West Coast swing to campaign for some candidates in California and Oregon. OMB projections for a Clean Energy Tax Credit proposal. A couple requests for interviews, and a dozen more from the D Triple C about finding funding for some tight races.

The lights flicked on and off, signaling the start of the Second Act. Josh glanced at Donna and sheepishly put the phone away in the holster at his hip.

He laughed a little when the first song of the second act was a Spanish lesson masquerading as a rather lovely duet. He’d have to remember _“bésame”_ for later with Donna. A couple more scenes played out, the characters struggling to deal with their personal issues amidst the blackout. A party was thrown, and then the announcement that a character had died of heart failure.

Josh felt something painful stir in him. He thought of Leo again, and the waves of guilt and loss washed over him, even two years later. He brought a hand to his face and found he was crying. He looked over at Donna, who was dabbing at her own tears with a handkerchief, and it appeared the President and his wife were equally affected. He wondered who they were thinking of, or if they’d just been wrapped up in the story.

The show continued. He found himself laughing at one point when a woman was trying to open her heart to the protagonist as he struggled to open a bottle of champagne. Soon enough, the rousing finale was coming to its crescendo, and the members of the audience leapt to their feet in applause.

Rob Butterfield entered the box again, and this time went straight to the President. “Sir, we have to leave now.”

“I was going to go backstage and…”

“I’m sorry, sir, there’s an incident happening in Harlem, and I need to get you and your family out now.”

With brutal efficiency and little tact, the six of them were taken out of the theater at a brisk pace and escorted to the motorcade. Harlem was about six miles away to the north, and Marine One was waiting near the southern tip of the island. 

Josh and Donna were ushered into a car behind Stagecoach, the designation for the vehicle holding the President, along with two Secret Service agents. The motorcycles led the motorcade along 46th street, where traffic already have been cleared. It seemed that they’d been setting this up for the latter part of the second act of the show. 

Inside the car, Josh was swearing, the car’s phone to his ear. 

“Anything?” Donna asked, taking his free hand in hers.

“Ron’s probably briefing the President,” Josh said, his voice sharp with frustration. 

She gave his hand a squeeze. “What can you tell me? Can you say anything about what they told you during the show?”

“There was a potential threat, related to the incident at Culver University,” Josh said carefully, “They’d set up checkpoints- yes, Mr. President, I’m here.” 

Donna squeezed his hand again, gently, then released it. He was anxious, and he had a habit of gesticulating when he felt that way. 

“Are they sure?” he began, “Yes, sir… I’m just, I mean… The thing in Willowdale took out a helicopter, sir… I understand, Mr. President… Yes, sir, as soon as we’re back at the White House. Thank you, sir.”

He turned to his wife. “There’s a lot I can’t talk about right now, but they’re saying they got the guy from Culver University. It’s just clean up, but the Service wanted to get the President back to D.C. out of a reasonable amount of caution.”

Donna nodded. “Caution is good. I’m glad we got to see the whole show before we had to leave. I need to see if I can get the soundtrack for my iPod.”

Josh made a noise that may have been assent as he scrolled through his Blackberry. “Listen, I’m… I’m glad you enjoyed the show. I’m going to have to go back into the office when we get back.”

“I expected that. I’ll pick up Chinese on the way home, you can reheat it when you come home,” she said. “Or, I could wait in your office, work on my Ethics and Public Policy paper while you get briefed.”

“I don't know how long I’ll be,” he said, “I don’t want you to be stuck there all night.”

“Is Margaret going to be there?” 

“No - I let her go home early today,” he said.

Donna pouted, “You’re nicer to her than you ever were to me.”

“I liked you more,” he noted, smiling a bit, “I wanted you where I knew I could reach you.”

“And away from the gomers?” she asked, smiling back.

“You know it.”

She hummed a bit of the song with the champagne mishap. “I’m glad we weren’t too late.”

He put down his phone for the moment, leaned over and gave her a very tender kiss. “Me too. Thank you for having patience with me.”

She pulled him back into a deeper, fiercer kiss in response. “And thanks for having faith in me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love both TWW and AoS, but the concept of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a little fuzzy to me. The opening narration makes it seem secret, but Coulson was pretty blasé about name dropping it in Iron Man. Also, why would an American spy agency take direction from a World Security Council? I'm regarding it as the super secret spy version of Interpol here, still mostly regarded as a myth.
> 
> Next chapter - Josh reconnects with Mike Casper.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh learns what his old friend Mike Casper has been up to.

They’d been over New Jersey when the news hit about the attack. There was confused chatter on the military frequencies about an ongoing disaster in Harlem. There were explosions, multiple fatalities. The press was suggesting it was a terrorist attack, while the panicked 911 calls spoke of monsters - first one, and then another - rampaging in the streets, fighting one another.

They’d barely crossed the Pennsylvania border by the time it was over. One of the monsters was in custody, the other fled. Upon landing, the President and his Chief of Staff rushed to a very brief meeting in the Situation Room about the evening’s events. 

The screen projected a blurry image of two huge… somethings… amidst burning car wrecks and fleeing crowds. A chyron read “Harlem Terror.”

“Who has this?” President Santos asked.

Secretary of Defense Estévez spoke reluctantly, “Everyone. CNN, Fox. All the networks.”

“No putting it back in the bottle then,” he said.

General O’Donnell, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, looked closely at a printout. “Mr. President, we have General Ross’s report.”

“Summarize it for me.”

“Ross was trying to capture Bruce Banner. He’d tracked him to Brazil, and send a team there. Banner came back to Culver University, where the original experiment occurred, and you know what happened there. Based on S.H.I.E.L.D. intelligence that Banner was heading for a meeting at Grayburn College, Ross had the checkpoints set up and units moved into position. Banner was neutralized, but another person somehow was infected by whatever created the… ‘Hulk.’” O’Donnell seemed uncomfortable with the designation. “Banner convinced Ross to let him fight this new creature, and he defeated it.”

The President looked around the table. “What about casualties?”

“Eight servicemen killed,” reported one of the deputies. “And approximately fifteen civilians, although that number will likely rise. Dozens more injured either in the attack or the ensuing panic.”

An aide came in and handed a note to Josh. He read the slip and then handed it to the President, his eyes questioning.

“Go,” President Santos said, “I’ll fill you in later.”

“We’re- we’re going to need to brief on this.”

“After we get done here.”

Josh nodded and left the room, making his way up to the Mural Room to meet someone from the mysterious SHIELD organization.

He walked in to see a man in a clean, dark suit with a visitor’s badge around his neck, sitting on one of the couches going over a file on the coffee table in front of him. Josh stared for a moment. He knew this man. Had known him for years, had shared jokes about receding hairlines. “Mike?”

The man looked up and smiled wryly. “I don’t warrant a knock?”

Josh stood at the door, his hand on the jamb. “I, uh, I was trying to put you on the defensive. Let you know that I don’t know where your organization thinks it’s getting all this authority - Mike Casper, you work for SHIELD?”

“Since college, Josh,” the man said, standing up and offering his hand. “Actually, I need to reintroduce myself. Agent Phil Coulson, of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.”

“Strategic Homeland… S.H.I.E.L.D. … it’s an acronym, not a codeword.”

“Yeah.”

“Not a great one,” Josh noted, absently. 

“You can take that up with Howard Stark and Peggy Carter,” Coulson replied.

Josh stood there. “Was everything about Mike Casper a lie then?” he asked softly.

“Only the name,” the man said, finally lowering his hand. “I really was assigned to the FBI. The Director was aware of my position with S.H.I.E.L.D.. I’m still the same guy. I just had a few more missions I wasn’t able to talk to you about, on top of the FBI missions I couldn’t talk about.” He paused, taking stock of Josh’s defensive posture. “I’m still your friend, if you’ll have me.”

“I’m sorry. I’m having a hard time with this,” Josh said. “I know I hadn’t connected in a while. Not since…”

“Not since Zoey Bartlet’s kidnapping, yes,” Coulson said. “I was reassigned back to Headquarters after that, and ‘Mike Casper’ was quietly retired.”

“Erased from existence? Just like that? No note, no goodbye?”

“There was a cover story, if you’d called for me at the FBI. Long term assignment, unable to give further details, that sort of thing. Probably would’ve faked Mike Casper’s death at some point,” Coulson said. “I always wanted to watch my own funeral. Or would that be creepy?”

“Pretty creepy,” Josh said. “You’d see a bunch of crocodile tears from your acquaintances and the gloating of a few enemies, and you’d have to watch the few real friends you had suffering.”

Coulson looked at the bitter expression on his friend’s face as he reflected on a lifetime of loss. He’d read Josh’s file, he knew about Joanie and his father. And about Mrs. Landingham and Leo McGarry. He knew that Josh Lyman was slow to trust, but when he did, he trusted - and loved - whole-heartedly. Finding out that Mike Casper wasn’t real was going to be hard for him to recover from.

“OK,” the agent said, “have a seat. You’ve been given clearance equivalent to a level three S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, so I’ve got to bring you up to speed.”

Josh took the couch across from Agent Coulson as he briefed him on the history of S.H.I.E.L.D., from its predecessor, the Strategic Science Reserve, to its founding and some of the more believable acts it had undertaken over the decades. Josh really struggled with the story of the guy who could shrink down to the size of an insect, but nodded anyway. The agent then explained the role of the World Security Council, and how only a few members of the Executive and Legislative branches were in the know. 

He pulled out from his briefcase a small, very thin screen, like that of a laptop. He pressed it, and footage began to play of the scene at Culver University. “Footage of the Hulk from one of the cameras on the assault vehicles.”

The thing was nine feet tall or so, with exaggerated musculature, and yes, green skin. And it was taking heavy machine gun fire as if it were standing in a swarm of gnats.

“Dr. Banner had been trying to replicate the Super Soldier serum…” Agent Coulson continued.

“What, like from Captain America?” Josh asked. He’d read about Cap in history back in middle school. He’d even had some of the comic adaptions of the man’s adventures passed down from his father. 

“Yes, exactly,” Phil confirmed, “But the experiment went awry, and Banner was turned into what is being called ‘the Hulk’. That was five years ago.”

Josh thought back. June of 2003, they’d just started their second term. It was right after Zoey had been kidnapped, and President Walken had relieved President Bartlet under the terms of the 25th Amendment. He vaguely recalled hearing about an explosion in a lab in Virginia, but it was said to be an accident. They’d been trying to catch their breath and just accepted the story they’d been given.

“You covered it up?”

“It was classified, yes. President Bartlet knew. The Chairman and the Intelligence directors. A couple members of Congress who’d been vetted. And Leo McGarry,” the agent said.

“Leo knew?” Josh asked weakly, “How… how long did he…?”

“He’d been brought on board at the same time as President Bartlet,” Coulson said. “I’m sorry, Josh, I knew we could trust you, but some of my superiors were concerned about your tendency to fly off the handle. You’ve got a bit of a reputation, you know.”

Josh looked at the floor. “So why now?”

“President Santos insisted. He feels, quite rightly, that his decision making is being hampered because his top advisor is out of the loop on certain matters,” said the agent. “And, to be honest, there’s Donna.”

“Donna?”

“Josh, I’ve known you for years. You can be brilliant and determined, but emotional maturity has never been your strong suit.”

“Hey!” The White House Chief of Staff was about to object, but took a moment to reflect. He had a probably well deserved reputation as “Bartlet’s Bulldog”. He knew more than once he’d allowed his emotions to get him in trouble. “Why Donna, though?”

“Because at some point you stopped acting like an emotionally constipated teenage boy, and my keen analytical mind has determined that it was right around the time you got your head out of your ass and confessed your feelings to that girl.” Coulson said, smiling. “Congratulations on the wedding, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Josh said. “I don’t know how I got that lucky.”

“Just remember…”

“I know, I know, don’t screw it up. If I had a nickel for every friend who told me that, we’d be running a surplus.”

Agent Coulson shook his head, “Actually, I trust you to do right by her. I was just going to remind you that she doesn’t have clearance…”

“I know.”

“So, she can’t…”

“I know,” Josh said again. “And if she ever asks about what happened to Mike Casper? She was teasing me that you’d promised to flirt with her at one point.”

“Well, I think I missed that window. So tell her,” Coulson said, “tell her that Mike Casper is off saving the world on his end, so you two better hold up yours.”

“O.K.”

Agent Coulson stood up, and Josh joined him. “Again, I apologize for the veil of secrecy. Maybe one day S.H.I.E.L.D. can come into the public eye. The world’s certainly getting weirder by the minute, and when everyone has a camera in their pocket, maintaining cover is getting harder. I don’t envy you your job, and I’m sorry if this just made it a little harder.”

Josh shrugged, “I feel better knowing.”

“You say that now,” Coulson said, and then held out his hand again. “I have to get back, make sure we have Blonsky tagged and bagged and fully secure. Give Donna my best - well, don’t do that, but think it at her, or something.”

This time Josh took his hand and shook it. “It’s good to meet you, Phil. Take care of yourself. And the rest of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently Fury's Big Week sets Incredible Hulk at the same time as Iron Man 2 and Thor. I don't buy it, so I'll stick with my timeline.

**Author's Note:**

> According to the timeline I'm using, the fight between the Hulk and the Abomination took place on June 13 2008. In the Heights officially debuted on Broadway in March of that year, and it seemed to me that Matt Santos would like to attend. (Apparently LMM was religionsly watching The West Wing on Bravo during part of this period. I dunno what he would've watched instead, and without TWW, Hamilton may have turned out quite different).


End file.
